New quills?" June held a piece of parchment in her hand, double-checking that she had everything she could need for her second year at Hogwarts.

"Check," her father responded.

"Another set of winter gloves?"

"Check. And a delicious ice cream break, check." Phineas Selwyn winked at his daughter as the two walked away from Florean Fortescue's, down the lightly crowded streets of Diagon Alley.

June smiled, grateful to spend time alone with her father. She was ecstatic for summer camp, yes, but that meant more time away from her family, so she was determined to make the absolute most of every moment she had with them. "Right, then all that's left are the textbooks." She had saved the absolute best for last.

She took the slight lead, feeling very grown-up as the pair walked towards Flourish and Blotts. The smell of fresh parchment flooded June's senses as she entered, her demeanor softening as she entered her safe haven.

Phineas placed his hand on his daughter's back, smiling down at her. "Why don't you hand me the list, Junie? I'll grab your books, and you can pick out a novel for the summer."

June hugged her father thank-you before speeding off to the shelves of new releases. The choosing of a new book could be quite tricky. You didn't want to be pulled in by an interesting cover and title by an author you didn't recognize only to be disappointed by boring plot and predictable characters. Then again, you didn't want to read the same authors over and over again, either, or their voice would get stale fast. What to do, what to do...

Textbook shopping was the most exciting part of visiting Diagon Alley in the summer. Of course, milkshakes were dandy, and this year there was the special occasion of getting to purchase his first broom, but textbooks were the old standby. Ice cream would melt, broomsticks would get bent out of shape, but a good book could last you forever. Figuratively. The knowledge would. In George's care, the pages would be crumpled up and ripped off the spine within three years at most, but it was only because he loved them so much.

What caught George's attention when he entered the store was not the selection of textbooks, but another thing which he also liked and had a habit of mistreating - June Selwyn. She was with a grown-up. A man that George assumed was her father. He cursed himself for not bringing his own summer reading with him to get signed. While he loathed to admit it, he had become something of a fan of her father's work over the past few weeks.

"Well, well, well," George said, having slid up beside the younger Selwyn to ambush her in conversation. He gave her a little up-nod in greeting, his arms folded against his chest and a smug little smirk on his face. "Are you doing your second-year shopping list?"

Obviously. It took a moment, but soon enough a man appeared who looked almost exactly like George if he were about a half-foot taller, wore glasses, and was capable of growing facial hair. Not exactly like George, then, but enough to guess the family relation.

"George," he said, with a sigh of relief. "Stop running off, we're in the middle of London."

The man took a look around with his words, narrowing his eyes as he peered back out the store window, as if he weren't sure they were in London any more. With his button-up and business-casual khakis, he looked quite unlike the usual denizens of Diagon Alley. This was a muggle. George turned a bit red when he realized he'd been found.

"Dad, can you just... wait... you're embarrassing me. Why can't you just wear robes..." George began, trailing off into a murmur as he conversed with his dad. Mr. Henry murmured something in response and George let out a frustrated groan. George hissed something to his father under his breath. "Not bath robes!"

The young boy covered his face, massaging his temples as he tried to figure out just how to get his dad to stop following him around so closely. Everyone at school would know he was a muggle-born at this rate. Maybe they'd generously assume his mom was a witch... "Go... go meet June's dad! That's him!"

With his father shooed off in the direction of Mr. Selwyn, their kids could go back to the work of annoying each other during their big shop for the next school year. "You'll want that," George said, tapping the cover of one of the new releases with his finger. The cover was a very edgy picture of a rose blooming from a skull's eye. "If you like romance. Or murder mystery. It's sort of both."

The saying goes that you "can't judge a book by its cover", but one couldn't deny the importance of a cover to draw in a reader. After all, if a cover is dull and unattractive, why would you be tempted to pick it up in the first place? Or read the synopsis?

Such was the predicament June currently found herself in, as she browsed through cover after cover. Nothing was particularly jumping out at her, but on the occasion that it did, the plot of the book seemed recycled and stale.

"Well, well, well."

June jumped slightly as the familiar voice interrupted her search. She rolled her eyes a bit at the startle, but a friendly smile was on her face. "As a matter of fact, I've almost finished. Just textbooks, and I'm picking a summer novel right now. But I'm not really sure which one to pick..."

June had never seen anything like what happened next. She had interacted with more than her fair share of muggle-born and half-blood witches and wizards to have a bit better of an understanding of the non-magical world, so she was familiar with people looking and acting a bit out-of-sorts around magic, but this man was nothing like June had ever seen before. Well, his behavior, that is. June had seen men before. The look of bewilderment and slight confusion on his face.. June hadn't ever seen an adult with that expression before.

The young Selwyn stifled a giggle at the interaction between the flustered George and his father, before clearing her throat and making nice. "You must be Mr. Henry, then! I'm Selwyn, June Selwyn, lovely to meet you." She smiled and waved as a means of introduction, unsure if there was any sort of muggle introduction beyond that.. But a friendly wave "hello" seemed like a safe option.

Ah, yes, the man was clearly a muggle, no doubt about it. His dress and demeanor screamed "I don't quite know what is going on here".

She waved again as the man walked towards her father. Why he had sent him off in that direction, June was unsure. It seemed the only thing the pair had in common was being a father. Hmm.

June pulled out the book George had tapped, admiring the cover in her hands. "Murder mysteries I'm certainly a fan of, but I'm not so sure about romance..." She turned the book and began skimming the synopsis on the back. "So, did you grow up in the muggle world then?" The question came out flippantly, a mere question of small-talk as June was (yet again) judging a book by its cover. Oops.

The older Henry gave a smile and a polite nod to the young girl. "Hello, June! Lovely to meet you as well - but I'd better move along before I embarrass George any further," the man quipped. George folded his arms and gave his father a lethal glare, grumbling under his breath as the man walked off to go meet with Mr. Selwyn a bit further down the shelves. He could be heard lamenting his lack of gal-lions as he flipped through one of the books on the shelves, looking bewildered by the contents.

George let his arms hang down by his sides, trying his best to look unruffled from that whole interaction. "Maybe when you're older," he teased, regarding her lack of interest in romance novels. It wasn't as if there was a huge gap between 12 and 14 (and a half), but George had noticed that his crushes had gotten a whole lot worse around the end of third year.

Being unruffled didn't last for long, as June's question of whether he'd grown up in the muggle world sent him right back to ruffles. He looked a bit red in the cheeks, turning away as he tried not to show it. Of course she knew he was a muggle - everyone did. At least when he came with his mom, she could pass as a slightly unfashionable wizard if she wore a dress. He tried to summon up a lie - he had determined, if necessary, he could lie and say that he was part of some offshoot of the Vanes family, and Alan would probably play along if it meant he'd be safe.

Safe from what? George wasn't sure. This was hardly persecution, this was just embarrassment. Still, it felt terrible to be discovered for what he was. "Yes," he said curtly. Already on the defensive, he followed it up with a bit of snark before turning the conversation back around on her. While she'd earned his friendship by consuming the blessed Bean, it didn't mean she was immune from all the hardships that came from being a friend of George's. "Did you grow up in a barn? What's it to you?"

George's response was... sharp. June looked up, confusion and concern shadowing her face. "Did I.. grow up in a barn? No, I didn't. Did I offend you?" Uh-oh. June's stomach dropped for a moment, her face turning to slight distress at the possibility that she'd upset her friend. "I'm sorry if I did, I didn't mean it in any sort of way." June looked down, face flushed. Why did she always end up saying the wrong thing in front of George Henry?

"I'm just... I don't know, curious. I don't know anything about the muggle world other than the fact that they play chess but the pieces don't move on their own." June traced the cover of the book with her finger. "The Splintered Heart", mystery and.. romance. What an odd combination. "Is... Is it rude to ask about the muggle world?" June bit the inside of her cheek, afraid to ask the question. "I just don't want to be impolite if it is."

She stood there for a moment in awkward silence, internally cursing herself for being the most hopelessly socially inept person in the history of the entire world. Her eyes flitted around, trying to find something, anything to talk about other than this, especially if it was making George upset. Her gaze landed on the two fathers, talking about something on the other side of the store. June saw her father holding one of his own books in his hand as he spoke.

"Seems they're having an interesting conversation, any idea what they could be talking about?"

George sneered at June, though the way she looked down and apologized did a fair bit better than her long-winded non-apology on the train. Perhaps she'd have to eat the bean of forgiveness again later, but he did not have any candy on hand, and he'd already been scolded for spending so frivolously at the ice cream shop earlier. "I-... sorry, I don't..." It was suddenly him embarrassed for upsetting her, though he couldn't find any words to explain himself. Difficult to explain that the greater part of your life was taboo to ask about, but he didn't quite feel like giving a science and history lesson.

"That's not funny," he said simply, assuming that her comment on curiosities like inanimate chess pieces was simply her trying to get under his skin. However unintended that may have been, he was still very much annoyed. Worst of all, she might have the gall to mention this in front of other people, considering her talent for trading gossip. "I would prefer you didn't. Imagine if every time you saw a muggle you had to explain to them everything about the wizard world. Wouldn't that test your patience?"

That might be analogous to the experience of a muggle-born wizard who did not keep that side of himself under heavy wraps. The truth was that he rarely brought up the muggle world at all any more, and often feigned ignorance to the greater part of it. Sometimes he was just ignorant to it, as he had learned when Willow had to explain how selling things on the internet worked. He wished he could just forget everything about muggles, but unfortunately, he had to live with some of them.

"Them?" he said, looking back to their fathers. He glanced back to June with a cocked eyebrow, then back to the men. They did seem to be having quite an animated discussion about something. George's father, being pure muggle rather than muggle-born, was substantially less insecure about his lack of magic. He was used to being a muggle by now. He was more bemused than amazed by the existence of a secret wizard society in the heart of London, something which never failed to annoy George.

Looking at his father, George let out a frustrated groan, as he was currently embodying the very thing that he'd just told June would be annoying. Being one of the limited exceptions to the Statute of Secrecy as the parent of a muggle-born, George still wondered if the questions Mr. Henry was lobbing at Mr. Selwyn would not get him in trouble with the ministry. He beckoned June to sidle closer, aiming to eavesdrop on them while pretending to browse books. "This one, um... Dogs on the Moor... it's... about... dogs... who hang about bogs," George improvised, tilting his head to try and catch the conversation from their parents.

They were not, in fact, discussing anything interesting about the wizard world at all. In fact, George's father was talking about his difficulties in publishing his writings, a subject to which Mr. Selwyn could likely relate. After all, even a wizard needed to find editors and publishers willing to wade through their unfiltered creative output.

"Oh. Um... my dad's sort of a writer," George said. In the same way that George was sort of an astronaut by having once climbed a tree, his father was sort of a writer by putting words on pages. He didn't like thinking about his father's creative endeavors - he was unfortunately aware that the lack of income associated with being an aspiring author was the source of the occasional conflict between his mom and dad. "I think they're talking about that..."

The air around June seemed to freeze as George gave her a bit of a lecture on muggle-related etiquette. She nodded, being sure to drink in each word he was saying. The absolute last thing June wanted was to upset someone, especially one of her friends (no matter how odd of a friendship they had). June took a deep breath once George had finished. "You're right, that would be exhausting. I won't bring it up anymore."

And with that, a prompt change in subject was in order. June followed her friend as they shuffled closer to their fathers, straining to hear any part of their conversation. But June was quickly distracted from any sort of espionage by the phrase "It's... about... dogs... who hang about bogs." June put her hand over her mouth as she tried to hold in her laugh, not wanting to disrupt the calm atmosphere of the store. It was only semi-successful, a couple of snorts made it out, the sound even more distorted by the filter of her hand.

Oh, a writer? June was able to regain her composure before voicing her thoughts."Your father's an author? Why didn't you mention that before?" She flipped through her memories with George, trying to make sure he hadn't brought it up in conversation in the past. Surprisingly, June realized that her list of memories with George Henry was very short. Surely they had spent more than a few hours together in total, right? "You know, George Henry, it has occurred to me at this moment that I hardly know a single thing about you, other than that you used to be a reporter."

"Not that you can tell a muggle anything about the wizard world... even the ones who are allowed to know," George grumbled, glaring back at his father, who was engaged in lively chatter with Mr. Selwyn. His dad just didn't understand how important all of this stuff. Hundreds of years of Muggle history were reduced to trivia knowledge once you broached the statute of secrecy. It was wizards who could do anything, who had powers beyond the wildest imaginations of the average Londoner living just outside the walls of the enchanted alley. None of them understood.

But the matter at hand was no longer barely restrained self-hate, no. It was about spying on the adults. George smirked as June started to break into laughter at his description of Dogs in the Bog, or whatever the hell the book in his hand was titled. He started to leaf through it idly. He was remarkably good at pretending to pay attention to something, and he suppressed his smile and stared down at the prologue with laser focus. This didn't seem to have anything to do with dogs at all.

"Should I have addressed that when I was throwing you through the air, during my detention, or during the pity party on the Hogwarts express?" George mused, with a thoughtful look on his face. He quite liked her, even though their short time together had been something of a rollercoaster. It really felt like a bond more significant than one of a few hours. Perhaps that was something positive he could write in his journal about June Selwyn - with her, the minutes felt like days. And they grew ever longer the more she blabbed while he was trying to eavesdrop. "Could you... hm?"

Just a reporter? Well, that was a significant facet of his personality. He always thought a career in journalism suited him spiritually, even if it was a poor fit in all practical regards. Being caged by editors and censored by secretaries when he entered the world of sell-out tabloid journalism (such as the tripe peddled by the Daily Prophet) was an unappealing prospect. "I like... well, I don't know. I enjoy Charms quite a lot. I'm from Scotland. I enjoy reading, writing, doing makeup, playing piano, and hanging out with children like yourself."

He shrugged helplessly. His title as Broom Racing Captain did not come to mind, because if it did, that would really ruin the continuity. "My mum is a teacher and my dad's an author... er, well, aspiring author, I guess. He hasn't got anything officially published, but apparently you can just put books out online now, or something. Maybe he'll do that?" George shrugged. He was hardly invested in his father's career, quite resigned to living on the income he had been accustomed to his entire life in Walkerburn. "He's always raving about... plots. I dunno. Maybe your dad'll have some good advice."

June leaned with her back against the bookshelves as she listened to George's "about me" spiel. She playfully hit his arm when he called her a child. "I'm only two years younger than you, you know. I don't think it makes that much of a difference." June, in fact, did think it made a big difference, as evidenced by her excitement over befriending a rising fourth year. However, any sign of her elatedness was firmly shoved down and locked in a box, as the embarrassment she would feel over anyone finding out that she actually felt cool would probably send her to St. Mungo's.

She quietly cleared her throat, not wanting to imagine on problems that hadn't appeared yet. "Charms are fun... I quite like Astronomy. I don't think I'll go into a profession that actually utilizes it, but it certainly is interesting." June smiled as she pictured George touching up his appearance on the train in the middle of their argument. "Makeup, huh? I can't do much, but it's always fascinated me. It's like... Like art on the face, I guess."

A look of confusion crossed June's face as George mentioned something about publishing on a line. But fearful of peeving off George further with possible muggle-related questions, she let it be. She nodded, "He often has some good ideas. He's been a bit stuck in the planning stages of his next novel, though, perhaps some inspiration could strike from their conversation." She pictured the frantic late-night pacing that her father had been doing nearly every night since she'd returned for summer holiday. "You might have single-handedly put in motion the events that lead to the idea for his next novel." June glanced at her father, sighing at the slight dark circles under his eyes. "I certainly hope so."

"Yeah, but I'm a teenager. You're only a baby," said George, with a sympathetic frown and a nod, like a doctor giving bad news to the patient. It was true - thirteen was probably the biggest year in a person's life. It was when you stopped being a carefree child and started being an extremely worried small adult. Hair sprouted from your face and pits, your voice dropped half an octave, and your mum started telling you to wear deodorant. Not that he had come across any wizard deodorant, so he settled for perfume until he figured out the alternative.

"What profession even utilizes astronomy at all?" George wondered aloud, craning his neck and turning his head on a swivel in search of the books on the subject. He shrugged, finding nothing of the sort within arm's reach to make fun of. "The professor's nice, but... I don't know. Even liking her isn't enough to make astronomy interesting. Oh, actually - I like astrology, but she doesn't really teach it much... you only get that in Divination. I guess it'd be a useful OWL, then, if you got really into Divination. That sounds like a rubbish sort of thing to spend your life at, though..."

Blabbing on, George idly swept his hair up along his forehead, tucking a few errant locks behind his stand-out ears. He rolled his eyes as he caught that momentary look of confusion. Of course she didn't know about online. George hardly did. "It's like- you can do it from your house," he said simply, shrugging. That was about the extent of his understanding. He wasn't about to explain computers to a wizard when the only thing he knew how to do was turn one on, and even then it was 50/50.

"He often has some good ideas? If someone described my articles that way when I was on the Headliner, I would've quit," George said, shivering at the thought. Damning with faint praise was something George often suffered, if only because his expectations for himself were so high that anything short of 'perfect' felt like faint praise. The older boy looked quite satisfied with himself when June informed him that he might've set into motion a chain leading to a brand new Phinehas Selwyn original. "Does that mean I get a free copy?"

George turned down the aisle to sneak around behind one of the bookshelves, leaning in close to the books to listen to their parents chatting on the other side. Mr. Henry was obviously excited by the conversation he was having with the mysterious wizard man, though it was hard to pick out anything concrete through two layers of books. George crouched, trying to peek through a gap above the line of books, before giving up and turning back to June. "I think they're going to be friends. That's a bit weird. You didn't tell your dad I threw you into the lake, did you?"